


A Chance To Save The World

by Kris



Category: Blade (Movie Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:58:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kris/pseuds/Kris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal is having strange dreams, he's not sure he likes the direction they're taking or what they have to do with Drake.</p><p>AU, movie spoilers, slash, vampires, badly explained reincarnation, Mentions of past drug and alcohol abuse by a minor, nonspecific mention of a past prevented child abuse incident</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chance To Save The World

**Author's Note:**

> Bassed on a piece of artwork from Taibhrigh for the smallfandomfest6 on LiveJournal 

There’s real gold inlaid in the floor under Hannibal’s knee. It swirls and runs out past his line of sight in a majestic pattern. It sparkles where the firelight touches it. A hand brushes over his shoulder and he looks up directly into hazel eyes. The need pulsing under his skin abates for a few moments.

“You are not required to present yourself in such a fashion, my love.” The man’s voice is deep and rich and makes Hannibal feel like molten lava is pooling at the base of his spine.

“You are my liege,” Hannibal replies. It’s not his voice though. This voice is stronger, a little rougher. It sounds like back when he used to smoke, back before a pretty girl, a fast car, a fucked up party, passing out from too much coke and waking up with a thirst for blood. The hand cups his jaw firmly and the man leans down until their lips are about touching. The urge to complete the kiss sends tremors down Hannibal’s spine, he can feel his muscles quivering as he holds himself completely still.

“You are the second half of my soul. I do love you so,” the man says and takes Hannibal’s lips in a kiss that sweeps them both away. They tear at each other’s clothes as Hannibal is pulled to his feet. Hannibal shivers a little at the glint of firelight off sharp canines when the man smiles a predatory smile. “You will be mine,” the man says. Hannibal opens his mouth for the sharp kiss but pulls away on a gasp of pain. There’s a cacophony of noise sudden in its onset and Hannibal stares down at his chest, the blade of a sword pierced through.

“Traitor,” a new voice hisses in his ear and brings an accompanying feeling of anger and betrayal that he has no reference for. Hannibal screams as the blade is pulled up and out. The last thing he hears is the man, screaming a battle cry. The last thing he feels is the sword slashing at his throat.

He wakes up scrabbling at his throat, choking on blood that isn’t there. His heart is pounding a mile a minute and Whistler is staring at him like he’s got three heads.

“The hell’s the matter with you?” she demands from beside him. Hannibal stares at her for a moment too long, enough to make her uncomfortable. His hands are shaking so he puts them on his knees and breathes in deep. The scenery is whizzing by and the sun reflects hot off the tinted window of the Nightstalkermobile.

“Nothing,” he says roughly, “just a bad dream.” Just a funny, fucked up, way beyond crazy dream. At least there weren’t any clowns.

***

The village is in an uproar. The King is coming tomorrow and rumor has it that he will choose his new companion.

“It isn’t right,” he hears his mother whisper to his aunt. They’re sitting around the table in his mother’s kitchen and he’s watching them from the hallway. Hannibal’s eyes take in the sight of his father standing at the narrow slit of a window glaring out into the darkness of the night and Hannibal feels fear. He thinks ‘stop it, he can see you, he can hear you’,’ but he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t say anything. They all know what will happen when the King comes. Not only will he choose his new companion for the years to come, but he is also coming for the annual tribute and this year’s harvest isn’t enough to feed the full village over the off season, let alone the village and -

“You might as well come out if you’re going to listen in the dark,” his father says. Hannibal looks at him. There’s concern and anger and fear there. But he knows this voice from the last dream. This is that man that will kill him. Expressions Hannibal has never seen on his father’s face, his own father in reality or this man he knows is his father in this strange dream world. Whatever this dream is, he knows this comes before the gold room.

“We needn’t worry,” Hannibal hears himself say. “He will not choose me.” Revulsion replaces the myriad of expressions on his father’s face.

“The King’s proclivities are well known throughout the kingdom. It’s distasteful.” Hannibal doesn’t know why, but he thinks to himself ‘trust father to be more concerned about the chance that a man, his own son even, might get chosen as the King’s companion than about the village’s impending food shortage’. The bitterness of it sticks at him.

“Let us speak of different things,” his aunt says with a forced smile. Her eyes are on the hallway behind Hannibal and he turns his head and he jerks awake with a sharp gasp.

“Now what?” Whistler demands.

“Fucking clowns.” Hannibal mutters. Fucking clowns. He’s a) not eating taco’s before going out to hunt vampires and b) not falling asleep in the car around Abigail Whistler again.

***

They know that he’s coming. They’ve heard rumours over the Nightstalker communication lines which is a little more high tech than two cans and a piece of string, better results than the purple monkey dishwasher system, but just barely.

“So,” Whistler says to the room at large. There’s a heavy silence and damned if Hannibal’s going to be the first to break the ice. Whistler threatened to break his face if he cracked one more mosquito or lesbian vampire joke. Sommerfield says what they’re all thinking.

“Dracula,” she says with a sardonic twist to her lips. In her lap her daughter, Zoe’s, eyes widen in surprise and Sommerfield hushes her when she tries to ask questions. Hannibal would debate the appropriateness of the seven year old being in this meeting. He’d even question the appropriateness of a blind woman being put in charge of some of their more scientific endeavours but hell. Better that they be prepared. There’s some nasty ass shit out there and they need all the help they can get.

“Doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know, over the top?” Hannibal demands. “We’ve got ourselves the war to end all wars with these overgrown mosquitoes, some stupid ass ‘final solution’ that we can’t figure out” he ignores the death glare Whistler sends his way. “And they think it’s a good plan to go and resurrect Dracula? Do they want to run around all Renfield-ed?” He also ignores the ‘you’re too stupid to live’ look he gets from Abigail.

“We don’t know if it’s a resurrection -.”

“Shut up, Hedges,” Whistler snaps, but there’s no real heat to it. “What we need to know is what the end game is here. What’s the point of all of this, we need to anticipate their next move.”

“What we need is Blade,” Whistler Sr. doesn’t seem surprised at the startled looks that everyone throws his way. He’s pretty damned good at sneaking around, but then, living with Blade for as long as he has, well, that’s gotta count for something.

“You, my good man, need a bell. Hell, I’ve met bloodsuckers who weren’t as quiet as you are,” Hannibal grins unrepentantly at the upturn of the older man’s lips.

“Blade doesn’t want to help us,” Whistler says. She doesn’t look at her father, they’re on the outs these days. Hannibal doesn’t know what set it off this time but he knows they’ll come around. The two of them always do.

“Well I’ll see what I can do about that,” he says. He throws a book at Hedges. Hedges being Hedges, fumbles the catch leaving Hannibal to nab it before it hits the floor. Hedges sneezes at the dust cloud the book gives off when Hannibal squeezes the pages in his hand. “Thought you might find that useful.” Hannibal turns the book over. The cover is leather, the front is etched with a swirling gold symbol. “I went through a lot of trouble to get that, a little appreciation wouldn’t come amiss.” The dust isn’t dust, it’s ash. Hannibal grimaces.

“Oh gross,” he bitches. “I think I just breathed Vampire cooties.” Zoe giggles at him. Everyone else ignores him.

“Where did you get it?” Whistler demands but Whistler Sr. is gone with as little fanfare as he’d arrived.

“Needs a fucking bell,” Hannibal mutters.

“Get on it, Hedges, I want to know what the fuck is going on.” Hedges gulps at the bite in Whistler’s words and Hannibal knows he needs to head this attitude off right fucking quick.

“Don’t get pissy, Princess,” Hannibal’s voice makes it clear it’s an order. “Just because daddy likes big brother better right now doesn’t mean you get to break your toys.” She bares her teeth at him when she smiles.

“Fuck you, King. Fuck you.” She stomps off in the direction of the training area which guarantees that no one else will be going in there for the rest of the day but he got the reaction he was hoping to get. At least now she won’t be bitchy clear through to next week.

“Thanks, man,” Hedges mutters.

“I got your back,” Hannibal says with a grin.

***

Blade doesn’t know what’s good for him sometimes, Abraham figures. That’s part of the problem. If he did, they wouldn’t be right here right now. If the half vampire wasn’t so determined to keep people away there’s every chance that they’d have backup right now. Abraham hopes like hell that Blade doesn’t fuck around and takes Abigail’s help.

He hopes that Abigail doesn’t blame Blade for this and that she’ll forgive him for leaving and most of all, Abraham really, really doesn’t want to do this, but each to their own path or some bullshit.

“Move a finger and you’re dead!” the cop shouts. Abraham Whistler raises an eyebrow and holds up the radio detonator.

“How’s about this one?” he drawls. He lifts his finger from the switch and hears the telltale whine of the detonator going off.

“He’s got something in his hand!” someone shouts out but it’s too late for any of them. It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would and then it doesn’t hurt at all.

***

The market place is crowded like Macy’s on a super sale Saturday. Not that it looks remotely like Macy’s or even a normal street. There’s far to much sand. What there are are to many people in one place craning their necks too see over the others trying to get a glimpse of the King and his party. Some of the overly obsessed moms fidget impatiently, waiting for their chance to draw the King’s attention to themselves or their children.

The King’s party is slowly winding its way down the street. One woman pushes her daughter out into their path, so close to them that only the quick actions of a guard thrusting his spear out prevents her from being trampled to death.

“Disgraceful,” his father keeps his voice low, below the crowd. Hannibal looks down at his feet and catches his reflection in a puddle of water. For half a second he’s himself, confused as fuck expression and awesomely styled hair, and then he’s gone and in his place is a rippling image of a man in his early, early 20’s maybe even 18. He has dark hair and dark eyes and he’s -

“Enki, come away,” his mother says. What the fuck kind of a name is Enki? Hannibal wants to demand. Some kind of old English? She’s got a haunted look in her eyes and Hannibal wonders what she sees when she looks at him that makes her so worried for him.

“I only want to see, mother. I’m much to old to be chosen,” Hannibal says it with such confidence that when a heavy hand lands on his shoulder he almost brushes it off. Almost. The look in his mother’s eyes tells him not to as the hand tightens on his shoulder and turns him around.

“Your name?” the cleric asks when Hannibal faces him, but Hannibal doesn’t answer because his eyes are caught completely by the man on horseback staring back at him. The man with shifting hazel eyes that look almost gold in the sunlight. The man from his first dream, where he’d died but he knows he doesn’t know about that yet. Having two sets of memories is really, really confusing.

“Enki,” the man says, proving the rumours of his superior hearing true. When he smiles Hannibal can see his teeth. “The God of the Earth for a God among mortal men.” His voice is deep, rich, full of amusement and sends a shiver down his spine. Hannibal’s heard the voice before, in his first dream but he knows right at this moment in time it’s the first time he’s ever heard it.

“My Lord,” Hannibal says and bows his head. The King himself has singled him out. Something in his belly clenches in pleasure at being chosen.

“Bring him,” the King orders. The cleric’s hand tightens on his shoulder with strength no human should have. Behind him his mother yells something, his father doesn’t even look him in the eye as Hannibal is dragged past.

There’s no one there to bitch him out this time when he wakes up in his own bed with pleasure of someone else's past still curling in his gut. A quick check in with Google and he knows Enki is the name of a Sumerian god, Lord of the Earth. Seven thousand years ago.

He shakes his head and stares resolutely out the window into the grey smog of sunset and resolutely thinks about his own past.

***

There was a time when Hannibal’s life had been pretty decent. The classic American family. His father had been a Businessman with a typical nine to five job. His mother had married her high school sweetheart three weeks after they had graduated, two days after she had turned eighteen. They’d had a wonderful marriage, regular Ward and June Cleaver. First, Marcus had come along and two years after Marcus, along had come Hannibal.

From the little he remembers of it, they’d lived the American Dream. He remembers a small blue house with small front yard and a modest sized backyard surrounded by a white picket fence. His bedroom had had a window that looked out onto the front street and the kitchen had almost always smelled like cookies.

It all came crashing down in stages. First there was the car accident when he was eight. When he’d been staying with the neighbours because he’d had the flu and his parents had taken Marcus to his first little league game of the season. The game had been rained out barely two innings in. The car had been found in the ditch barely two miles away from the ball diamond. The hood crumpled in where it had connected with the concrete highway divider. The paint transfer on the side proving they had been run off the road, but the other driver had never been found.

Then he’d been admitted to a group home where he’d met Burt the Creepy foster parent two years later and where he had busted in Burt’s face in the first time the man had told him to call him Daddy and tried to stick his hand where it didn’t belong.

He had run away then, on the streets at ten years old because he didn’t trust the system and Burt had told him through a bleeding, broken nose that he would just go somewhere worse, where they punished little boys like him.

By thirteen he was binge drinking, by sixteen he was chasing the white dragon and paying for it with the odd robbery, the odd trick, here and there. At twenty he had made the worst decision of his entire life to date. Hannibal had met Danica Talos and learned Vampires were real and that was fucking cool.

Danica Talos was one cool fucking bitch, literally. If she’d had a heart when she had once been human it had probably been as cold as ice. She had pulled up next to his street corner in a red Lamborghini Diablo. She said she thought it was a shame, a good looking nice guy like him down on his luck, selling himself for dime bags. She’d liked his self deprecating sense of humour. She’d decided that he was so nice and so fucking funny that she would take him home with her. And him in his naivete, he’d gone along thinking it was just like Pretty Woman only she was Richard Gere and he was Julia Roberts.

Two months later, she had sunk her fangs into him and made him one of them. It was around the exact same time that he had realized that, in the movie that was his life, Danica was the Sid to his Nancy, their heroin was blood and the sex was almost fantastic enough that he didn’t care that he was going to end up as the poster child for vampire domestic abuse.

Five hellish years after that he’d been standing in an alley facing down Abigail Whistler’s crossbow.

“You looking for a good time sweetheart?” he’d asked with a sarcastic smile. She had looked like a challenge but an easy meal. Back then, barely two years ago, if she hadn’t had another Nightstalker backing her up with a shotgun full of tranquillizer, she would have been dinner, not something Hannibal would ever tell her now though. At the time, she had smiled back at him, a cross between, ‘sweet and innocent’ and ‘I’m going to eat your face’ which was a look he got a lot being around Danica.

“I think you’ll do just fine,” she had said and when the tranq had worn off he’d already had the first of three doses. He’d been the first test subject of Sommerfield’s vampire cure. He couldn’t find it in him to hate either woman for doing it, despite the fact that it had been like coming off heroin only a hundred times worse.

Waking up human had been the best damned day of his life.

***

“He can transform,” Hedges said. Hannibal’s mashes his face into the table, missing his bowl of Froot Loops by mere inches. Energy like that this early in the morning should be outlawed. A comic and the leather bound book are dropped onto the table beside his head. “Into a wolf,” The smugness and the gleeful geekery are way too much to handle.

“I’ll kill you, I swear to God.” Hannibal tells the ugly floral print 1960’s table top.

“A whole new person! but definitely not a bat or a wolf. That’s just stupid. He can control you with his mind!”

“I have a gun and I know you’re afraid when I use it.”

“There’s -” Hannibal pulls his backup out of his boot, aims it at Hedges and clicks the safety off his gun, face still pressed against cool formica. “Shutting up now.”

“Make me coffee,” Hannibal orders, he can hear Hedges swallow, hurry away to the counter and the coffee pot. Hannibal clicks the safety back on and holsters the gun.

***

Abby stares at the television set with mixed feelings. On the one hand, fuck him. He’s in jail and there’s no mention of her father and the warehouse is on fire. Whistler is more than likely dead.

On screen there’s a replay of the interview with some douche psychiatrist about Blade’s delusions. She can see he’s a Familiar from the way he holds himself and the occasional flash of the tattoo under the cuff of his dress shirt.

On the other hand, if her father is dead, he’s not going to want her to leave Blade to the human authorities. Or the vampires that are bound to get their hands on him sooner or later. The last thing the world needs right now is another La Magra attempt.

“You’re fucking insane, Abigail Whistler,” she whispers to herself. She shakes her head and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, she doesn’t have time for tears and her father wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway.

Hedges had better have some fucking information by now.

***

This world is nothing like what it had been when he had gone to sleep. The people and the things are too loud. His children are too demanding. They are bastardized versions of what his people should have become, living in the shadows and foraging like animals. This is not how things should have been. Even worse they have retrieved him, woken him, and they have not even had the foresight to find one who could match his heart. He has nothing in this world to keep him sane and they are constantly shoving mortals into his path in the hopes that he will be distracted.

He will leave this place and find his mate.

***

“Right,” Hedges says, he taps his fingers together in front of him. “Now that we're all caffeinated.” Hannibal just grins and raises his cup, a toast, in Hedges direction. “And we've all left our weapons behind.”

“Right, okay, whatever, moving on," Whistler says. Hedges flushes at her look but continues.

“So, everything we ever knew about vampires from myths and legends and Hollywood is wrong. And everything we ever knew about Dracula, that’s also wrong.”

“Go figure,” Hannibal murmurs. Whistler shoots him a glare. Hannibal holds his hands up in a don’t shoot me gesture and tips himself on the back two legs of his chair.

“Right, okay. So, it’s not Vlad Dracula. He’s not a count and he’s not from Transylvania. That Dracula was just some lord protecting his Fortress in Poenar way back when. Dracula as we know him would actually be more closely translated to Drake and he’s much, much older.” Hannibal thumps his chair back on solid ground, Whistler sits up straighter and attention is now firmly on Hedges. Older vampires mean more powerful vampires. Older than the myth of Dracula means older than five centuries. More than 500 years old. Even the ruling council that Deacon Frost had taken out when he’d tried to raise La Magra, the oldest has only been three centuries.

“How much older?” Whistler asks. Hannibal doesn’t need to hear the answer from Hedges. It’s already in his head.

“Six or seven thousand.” No one has anything to say to that. “From what I’ve been able to figure out, our informant in the Talos clan and from the book it’s pretty clear cut. He wasn’t just born a vampire, he was the first vampire. He drinks blood, he’s super strong, he’s super fast, he can change shape into almost anything and he can probably take Blade in a fight. We know he disappeared about a thousand years ago for some reason or another. Speaking of Blade, we need to figure out how to get him out of lockup.”

“Well this is getting depressing fast.” Hannibal quips. The corner of Whistler’s lip quirks up but she doesn’t smile. Not that he can blame her. The news confirmed one body, human, in the wreckage of the warehouse. A vagrant named Abraham Whistler, thought to have died a few years ago.

“So how do we destroy him?” Hannibal demands.

“There’s nothing in the book, not really. There’s no source to his power that we can destroy. There’s no time of the month where he’s weakest. He’s had a long life, he’s had a few lovers and one was even close enough to him to be called his soul mate. He’s fought in war for centuries. He’s a ruthless killing machine that was born ”

“Do you like, live, in the Marvel universe?” Whistler asks.

Hedges looks at her with an utterly serious expression when he says “yes” and it would be funny if it wasn’t completely obvious that Hedges isn’t fucking with them.

“Is the sky green?” Hannibal asks. Whistler elbows him in the gut hard enough that he loses his breath for a second.

“Do we have anything, anything at all, that could help us here?” She’s got her own serious face on. Her ‘lets kick some ass’ face.

“That’s where Sommerfield comes in,” Hedges says and gestures to the blind woman.

“I’ve been working on something,” Sommerfield says drawing their attention to where she’s sitting by her specialized computer. “We’re calling it the Daystar Virus.” She clicks a few keys and something sciencey happens on the computer monitor, not that Hannibal understands it at all. “It’s an artificial virus, a super virus, based on vampire DNA that will target vampires specifically. It’s been tested at a couple of other Nightstalker cells and it works. It’s one hundred percent transmutable, but it’s really temperamental. We would need as close to an undiluted source of true Vampire DNA as possible for it to actually spread and kill as fast as we want it to.”

“A true vampire DNA source?” Hannibal asks confused.

“Wait,” Whistler says, holding up a hand. “So what you and Hedges are saying isn’t that we’re in shit because we’ve got a seven thousand year old vampire who factors into world domination plans that we have no idea of how to deal with. You’re saying we’re in shit because we need his blood to deal with the world domination plans.”

“Basically, yes,” Sommerfield says.

“We are so, so fucked,” Hannibal says.

“Fuck this,” Whistler says. “The two of you keep working. King, grab Dex, we’ve got a Daywalker to rescue.”

“Wow, Whistler,” Hannibal says to her with a sarcastic grin on his face. “I think your heart just grew three sizes.” Whistler, already heading down the hallway to the gear-up room waves her middle finger at him as she walks away.

“I think this shows you growing as a person!” he shouts after her.

“You know you’re going to be stuck in the car with her, right?” Sommerfield asks.

“Sometimes my mouth disconnects from my brain,” he says.

“You’re implying your brain is ever connected.” Hedges winces when Hannibal punches him, not that hard though, because he completely walked himself into that one.

***

When Hannibal gets frustrated he likes to take it out on a punching bag in the gym, or if someone is up for it, a decent sparring session. Not many people are usually up for it and today is no exception. Hannibal has this itchy feeling under his skin that’s driving him insane. He resists the urge to scratch the ‘bugs crawling under his skin’ sensation.

***

It’s a pretty fancy room they have him in. He’s waiting for the King. He’s thinking things over, making a choice. The Cleric had lead him here and explained to him that he hasn’t got a choice, that he’s the only thing in the entire world that will keep the King from going insane (again) and razing villages to the ground (again) and they will be mated. Not entirely true though, that he doesn’t have a choice, because Hannibal can see the knife they left on the table next to the old time fruit basket and he could totally kill himself with it. He doesn’t know why killing himself is the first thought that pops into his head, something just tells him (tells Enki, rather) that killing the king isn’t an option. The only thing in the room other than the table with the fruit (the knife) is the bed, a large Harlequin Romance style bed in the centre.

“You are very beautiful, Enki,” Hannibal looks up at the man in the doorway. He’s around 6 feet tall, broad shoulders, large muscles, tanned. Hannibal’s brain screams at him that this man is a threat. Enki’s brain seems to be more taken with the man’s green eyes.

“My Lord,” Hannibal says and bows.

“Will you be mine, beautiful Enki?” Now that he’s looking, Hannibal has to admit, the eyes are pretty fucking awesome. Green, but swirling with gold.

“Yes, my Lord,” Hannibal.

“Call me Drake,” he says. Oh god, oh god, he’s going to die. Drake cups Hannibal’s face with broad, warm hands, lifts Hannibal’s face up and kisses him. It hits him like a ton of bricks because Jesus fucking Christ he’s the original gangster’s main squeeze. The kiss itself steals his breath away. It rocks his fucking world. Hannibal’s stomach is tied up with emotions that he’s never ever felt before and all from a simple kiss. There wasn’t even any tongue! Also, vampires just, aren’t that hot. Unless they’re David Boreanaz. Or Brad Pitt.

“Drake,” Hannibal sighs, and wow does he ever sound like a thirteen year old girl. The room spins around him and stops when Drake drops him onto the bed. Hannibal is a bit shocked. Okay, he’s a lot shocked. Drake is covering him, pressing him down into the bedding. They’re the same height but Drake has so much more muscle than Enki does. He’s a bit embarrassed by how into this Enki is but there’s no denying that it’s good. Fucking fantastic.

Drake takes him in a gentle way, as gentle as he can be taking someone for the first time with his monster fucking cock and Hannibal would be swearing up a shit storm if it was him but Enki just lies there with his hands clutched in the bedsheets and moans small little sounds that make Drake’s cock jerk inside him. Enki turns out to be a little vixen who scratches and bites.

***

“Look, I think we need to own up to it, Dan, we made a big fucking mistake,” Asher says. He’s tired, Danica’s tired. They’re all tired from all the running around they’ve had to do lately and they’re running short on Familiars. Hell, they’re having trouble paying people to be Familiars. Could be that they keep letting the Familiars get eaten and somehow word had gotten out to the clubs that life expectancy of a Talos Familiar had dropped staggeringly in the last few months.

“I’m not willing to give up,” Danica’s lips are twisted up in a snarl of loathing and Asher doesn’t know if she’s directing it at him or at herself. “We can’t exactly say ‘oh, by the way, we think we made a mistake waking you up. Would you mind going back to sleep so we can unfuck ourselves?’ now can we?”

“Hey,” Asher snaps. “Don’t get bitchy with me, Kitten, I’m not the one who pushed and pushed for this. This is your Party, I’m just a fucking guest.”

“You’re worse than a guest,” Danica mutters. “You’re like that person who crashes the party and hangs out in the corner and then narcs to the cops about the underage drinking.”

“Ouch,” Asher hopes the heavy sarcasm makes it past Danica’s ego. “That one really hurt. You’re losing your touch sweetheart. Is all this starting to get to you?”

“Fuck you, Asher.” Asher licks his lips and grins a big shit eating grin.

“Anytime you want to hop on board and give it a spin, Dan, anytime.” She hisses at him and stomps away. The door suffers her wrath. The metal splinters apart under her hands as she shoves it out of her way.

“What the hell are we going to do about this?” Jarko demands. “Drake’s fucking useless, the blood bank isn’t working fast enough. And what the fuck was the point of finding him?” Asher tosses an incredulous look over at him. Jarko Grimwood, his and Danica’s Hannibal King replacement. They’d wanted someone with less brains, less mouth and about the same brawn. Jarko was the very definition of ‘be careful what you wish for’, thank god his mouth is good for other things.

“We’re not going to do anything about ‘this’,” Asher tells him. His stern stride from the room is interrupted by having to step over pieces of the door. “Danica is.” His next words are for him alone. A little bit of bitterness he doesn’t intend to share with the world. “She’s the one that wanted to be Queen of all the vampires. This is her mess.”

***

There are broad hands sweeping over his naked skin and wherever they touch it feels like burning. Hannibal wouldn’t stop them for the world. Not that he’s in control of anything. Enki is shaking like a little leaf under Drake’s body. Drake’s kisses are like a drug and Enki is making all these pitiful moaning sounds and seems more than content to let the other man take control. Hannibal can’t make his hands do anything except clutch at Drake’s naked waist slick with sweat as Drake pushes into him over and over again.

“You are perfect, you are absolute perfection,” Drake whispers into Hannibal’s ear. “I could take you like this forever.”

“Please, oh please,” Hannibal begs. His legs feel stretched where they’re wrapped around Drake’s waist and Drake’s cock feels like steel inside him. Every stroke pushes Hannibal higher and higher, touches that place inside him that he hadn’t known existed until Asher. Didn’t know he missed until just now. Enki is shaking and crying out a low keening wail and he feels his whole body tense up.

“Give me everything,” Drake orders. His hands tighten on Hannibal’s hips. Enki shouts as he shakes apart. Drake roars and it’s something beastly, inhuman and when he sinks his teeth into Hannibal’s neck it feels like coming again.

***

Hannibal wakes up and knows three things. There is a sticky, wet, cold mess in his boxers, a rock hard erection pressed into the sticky/wet/cold mess and a persistent idea fully formed and completely fucking insane, rattling around in his brain. He’ll start with the hard on and move on from there.

A morning jerk in the shower leaves him loose in the shoulders and in a better mood than when he’d gone to bed. Still hyped up and angry over the attitude a certain Daywalker had shown upon rescue. Ungrateful bastard.

Hedges is microwaving strawberry poptarts when Hannibal makes his way into the kitchen and then makes a beeline for the coffee pot.

“That’s disgusting, Hedges, you’re an animal.” Hannibal says and sits down with his Froot Loops and coffee.

“You really don’t get to judge,” Hedges says. He juggles the poptart from one hand to the other, hissing at the heat.

“Poptarts should only ever be toasted,” Hannibal reproaches. “Honestly, you’re a heathen.”

“Says the man eating his Froot loops and coffee.” Hedges snorts. Hannibal just grins unrepentantly and dumps some brown sugar on top of the whole mess.

“You find anything else out from that book?” he tries for casual. Hedges just raises an eyebrow because Hannibal’s never really been good at casual.

“Not so much,” Hedges shrugs. “War, pillage, plunder, rape, steal, create superhuman race of night walking, blood sucking crazies, sleep for a thousand plus years.”

“I do so love the cliff notes version, of anything really. It’s always so concise and to the point.” Hedges rolls his eyes. “Tell me more about this soul mate period.” Hannibal demands.

“Why?”

“Because I woke up this morning with a hard on for historically accurate porn, true fact.” Hedges stares at him and Hannibal keeps his ‘I’m stupid’ smile on his face until the geek sees whatever he was looking for, maybe decides that Hannibal’s not making fun of him. “I’m not making fun of you,” Hannibal reassures. If anything Hedges looks ever more worried.

“Whatever, you’re freaky.” Hedges says, but then explains anyway. “He was using some excuse that without his ‘soul mate’ he would go crazy and burn down a village or something. So the villages would put out all their available boys and girls and let him pick which one he wanted and he’d keep them around for a while and then suddenly a few years would go by and there would be a new search. So not so much a soul mate, but like, a concubine that matched him.”

“So, basically he wanted his chance to diddle his way through the ages?”

“Did you just say diddle?” Hedges asks.

“What? No. Crazy person.” Hannibal pushes away from the table and claps Hedges on the shoulder. “Thanks, man, there’s plenty of historically accurate monkey spanking in my future.”

“You are seriously the grossest individual I have ever met, please leave my sight before I’m forced to drink bleach in an attempt to cleanse my mind of that horrible, horrible image.”

“That’s what I like about you Hedges, always to the point.” Dex leans into the kitchen and gives them both the stink eye. Then again, Hannibal is convinced that’s the only look Dex know how to give.

“Whistler wants us in the gear up room, she wants to put Blade through the electronic paces. Match up intel.”

“Such is life,” Hannibal says and makes a face at his now soggy, uneaten coffee Froot Loops. “No rest for the wickedly awesome.”

***

“Fucking Hannibal King,” Danica screams at the top of her lungs. She’s got an impressive set of lungs. The sounds that come out of her mouth make his head hurt more and more. She’s violent, unpredictable and she breaks just as many things as she makes. Drake has disliked her from the beginning. The lassitude and the multiple feedings has done much to restore him. His mate will do the rest.

“We’re going to need another plan, goddamn it. I can’t believe they found the warehouse.” From his place in the shadows Drake watches Asher stare at the mammoth, Grimwood, with complete disdain.

“They got to Vreede,” Danica says. “Someone in here is leaking information.” The side door to the room bursts open and the young abomination who had been guarding his cell comes flying in. Drake grins. These children, they think themselves so clever. They think themselves capable of containing him.

“He’s gone!” the youngling exclaims. “I don’t know how.”

“What do you mean you don’t know how. He can’t walk through solid steel, you fuckwit,” Grimwood shouts. They know so little of him. Drake doesn’t linger, he wants to see this new world. This world he will rule.

***

He’s figured out he’s probably not going crazy. Hannibal’s just not appreciating the x rated dreams he’s having. Enki seems to be having all the fun and Hannibal’s the one waking up with a mess to clean.

Hitting the streets is probably not the best thing to do, but man, the hunt is calling and there’s nothing that winds him down better than a good hunt.

This particular vampire is pretty vicious and has possibly completely lost it’s mind judging by the carnage it’s leaving behind him. Hannibal finds him in the alley behind a creepy goth toy store of all things. The hulking shape in the shadows promises fight that will take the edge off.

“Hey, Sweetcheeks, wanna rumble?” the shape resolves itself from the shadows and Hannibal’s breath catches in his throat.

“Sweetcheeks?” Drake asks, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Some form of an insult?” Hannibal has two burning desires. The first to see if that trail of hair goes all the way down and the second to run like fucking hell. “Would you like to come with me?” Drake holds his hand out to Hannibal and acts for all the world like he’s going to take it.

Hannibal runs like fucking hell.

***

“Police say the victim, the employee of a vampire paraphernalia store, was found Tuesday marking her the sixth victim in two days to have been attacked by the man the police are calling “The Daylight Vampire”.

Drake stares unrepentantly at the the glares the Talos siblings are giving him. Amusing, that these children think they have control over him and his actions.Their people had found him long before he had completely his mission, he is sure the boy was meant to be his. He supposes the string of corpses that he had left behind him had been something of a clue.

“My mate was there at the store. You will find my mate and you will bring him to me,” he orders. The fear in the air around them speaks more to their intellect than anything else he has witnessed thus far.

***

There’s another replay of television interview with the douchebag psychiatrist on channel five. Channel six is the police report bulletin on Blade’s escape from the Remand Centre and channel twelve is a Law And Order repeat.

“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen and daywalkers. Looks like they’re letting Drake off his leash, but we’re no closer to finding out what the fuck they’re up too.” Hedges says. He doesn’t say, and by the way he’s a bad ass motherfucker that scared Hannibal shitless. But then, Hannibal didn’t exactly share his run in with the rest of the class.

“Unbunch your panties, Hedges,” Whistler sighs. “We’re getting closer.”

“Closer to what exactly? that’s the question,” Hannibal says. He lets out a sigh and rubs his sore shoulder. Blade hadn’t exactly gone easy on them and a long fucking day spent hunting down familiars and hanging them by their ankles over the edge of parking garages was, well, a long fucking day. A long fucking night before and his wasn’t over just yet.

“We know we have to go after Vance!” Hannibal lets Whistler do her song and dance, troop motivation speech. He’s too tired to give a fuck and he’s not getting any rest anytime soon. He can’t fucking believe he ran away from Drake like a bitch without at least trying to dust him. Fuck.

He waits until everyone is quiet. It’s the middle of the day, siesta time for all the happy boys and girls in the Honeycomb hideout. Vampires don’t usually come out at night and they’ve got big plans for tonight and tomorrow so everyone is taking their rest where they can.

Except for Hannibal. Hannibal is sneaking out the back door as quiet as can be because he’s had the same thought in his head since he woke up that morning, since he’d talked to Hedges about Drake’s conquests and ever since he’d talked to Hedges the itchy feeling under his skin has just gotten worse and worse. It feels like he’s going out of his mind now.

The worlds biggest suck factory, or the Talos Headquarters to the rest of the Vampire community, is a tall structure of steel and glass. Modern architecture, all angles and specially tinted glass windows. It’s across from a busy park, when he’d been under the fang, Hannibal had always believed the park to be their version of fast food.

Hannibal leaves car parked cockeyed in front of it, just to break up the perfection of the whole thing. He leaves the car running and hopes no one jacks it.

It’s quiet here in the early afternoon. Most of the vampires in Danica’s clutches like to play to the new age vampire hipster trend of sleeping during the day and stalking their victims at night. It’s relatively easy to get inside unnoticed. Some newbie is guarding the side door and lets Hannibal in without a thought once he sees Hannibal’s tattoo. From there it’s just a quick text message away from finding their contact, a lanky man named Johns with greasy blond hair and crazy looking eyes.

“Make it fucking quick, man,” Johns hisses. His mouth is a thin hard line where it’s usually in a wide smile. He’s always been easygoing with Hannibal.

“Chill the fuck out,” Hannibal whispers. “I’ll be in and out before you know it. And they’re all asleep, what’s the big fucking hurry anyway?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Johns hands are shaking like he’s looking for his next hit. He’s already bitten his nails down to the quick and Hannibal feels a stab of solidarity mixed with a bit of longing that he stamps down ruthlessly because it’s been years and years but you’re always an addict, you’re just in recovery. “He’s fucking eaten twelve of us so far today.” Hannibal eyes him a bit in shock. Eating the familiars isn’t something shocking, eating twelve in one day though, that’s a bit much.

“The fuck is up with that?” Hannibal asks. He’s so distracted though, that he doesn’t hear the answer. He’s staring instead. He’s staring at a pair of golden eyes down a darkened corridor. The man comes into the sunlight fully and it’s Drake. Hannibal had known it was him from the start. He can’t linger, not with Johns tearing the sleeve off Hannibal’s shirt in an effort to get away. Drake is advancing on them, step by indomitable step, moving faster and faster until he’s at a dead run, his long legs eating up the hallway in a blur of motion in the daylight. Hannibal doesn’t even think, no that’s not true. Hannibal fucking panics. He tries to run but Johns gets into his way, tangling their legs together. Johns is the unfortunate soul right in front of Drake. Drake’s hand reaches and curls around Johns’ arm. Johns screams and Hannibal doesn’t even turn around, just runs.

Bursting out into the sun makes him feel awful, because the sunlight used to be an escape from the vampires. Drake is a fucking day walker and he’s only a few steps behind Hannibal until he dives into the car, slides across the bench seat, the car is still running and when he hits the gas he burns rubber all the way down the street. His heart is pounding so hard he thinks it’ll pop out of his chest, fall on the floor.

***

“Word on the street is you don’t want to join Danica’s little fang gang groupies.” Hannibal says. “Apparently Drake is eating familiars by the dozens.”

“Do I even have to get into how incredibly stupid it was that you went there at all?” Whistler’s anger is all over her face. In the way she glare at him, the down turned corner of her lip. Her voice is a whip crack meant to flay him open. “You could have gotten yourself killed. Or worse, you could have been turned again and then where would we be? We’d be so fucked it isn’t even funny to think about.”

“You’re going to turn away good intel?” Hannibal demands.

“No, but I’m sure as hell not going to set an example by allowing this shit to go unnoticed!” she shouts. “It’s shit like this that gets people killed.”

“Yeah, well maybe I’m a bit fucking smarter than those people!” he shouts back. The second the words leave his mouth he wants to take them back. Her reply vibrates through the room when she slams the door behind her.

“Maybe not the most tactful thing you could have said.” Hedges says in a small voice.

“Aw shucks, I guess I won’t win that merit badge,” he snaps at him. He can’t help it. The itching under his skin isn’t just in his head anymore. It’s almost enough to drive him insane. He follows Whistler’s example but doesn’t slam the door shut. Still he has the satisfaction that he’s just left Hedges alone with Blade. Good times.

***

When they had first found him, Asher had been certain that it was a mistake to even go digging. Their own history has been kept well enough and everything ever written insisted that Dracula was completely insane.

When Drake set about proving him right and practically decimated the entire rescue team, Asher had gleefully shoved an I told you so in Danica’s face. This wasn’t their king, this was a mutt that had gone feral and should have been put down instead of put into hibernation.

The man standing in front of them is at once the same and nothing at all like the thing that crawled out of its pit in Syria. This man is put together, there’s intelligence in his eyes, strength in his voice and a feral wolf quality in his eyes. Asher has never been more scared in his unlife.

“I can’t believe one of our own familiars betrayed us,” Jarko is maybe dumber than a bag of bricks. If it weren’t for the way he can fuck Asher into the mattress, Asher would have killed him some time ago just for trying to exist.

“The man who survived the incursion this afternoon,” Drake says. His voice is smooth, flows over Asher like silk. “He is mine, bring him to me.”

The incursion, like a fucking Nightstalker, like Hannibal King of all fucking people, getting into the building during the fucking day was a fucking ‘incursion’, an accident. It’s a fucking catastrophe of epic proportions. He could have fried them all before anyone had noticed.

“Who? King? What do you want with that fucking Assface?” Jarko doesn’t even have a chance to regret his words before he’s a smear of dust on the floor. Pacman yelps when he gets dropped and barely avoids going up in flames. Asher feels a moment of relief for the dog.

“Okay, we really have to talk about the wanton destruction.” Danica starts with a drawl and ends in a shriek. “You can’t keep eating the day time help and you really need to stop dusting my god damned minions!”

“Kitten, I don’t think he gives a fuck.” Asher interrupts. He can tell by her bitch face she’s heading towards a Class A freak out and as much as he doesn’t care about Jarko’s dusting, Asher thinks he’ll care a little bit about Danica’s. Maybe.

“Oh, shut up,” Danica orders. “You know what, I don’t -”

“Stop.” Drake’s voice snaps over their bitching. Asher’s jaw shuts so hard his teeth click together. “The boy is mine, and you will find him for me.” And that’s it. Asher can easily see now why this man is their king. Because there isn’t a single part of him that wants to disobey Drake’s quiet, direct voice. Hell, Asher thought, he’d had problems disobeying when they were one hundred percent certain that Drake was buckets of crazy ass. “He is mine because I sense it in him. Provide him to me or I will decimate this world. And I will start with the two of you.”

Okay, maybe he’s still buckets of crazy ass.

“Fuck this, we should have left you in that god damned hole.” Danica snaps at the same time as Asher pulls out his cellphone and says

“Let me make some calls.” Asher fucking hates his life sometimes. His shoes make a rhythmic click clack as he walks away.

***

He is going to rule this world, he is going to rule this world with Hannibal King at his side. He can not help but smile at the images that one of Danica’s minion’s has brought him. Security footage of Hannibal as a vampire, his fangs evident, his strength undeniable. Images of Hannibal as a cured human, with a child at a play area, with an angry looking woman in the heat of battle.

Nothing like his mate

Enki is one fucked in the head man, Hannibal has decided. He’s pressed up against Drake, back to chest. Drake has one heavy arm over Enki’s chest holding him tight and the other wrapped around Enki’s neck, hand buried in Enki’s hair, holding his head at an angle. Enki is a panting mess of half formed endearments and soft animalistic cries with Drake’s cock hard, pressed deep into his ass, Drake’s teeth buried in his throat.

What really gets Hannibal is that this isn’t cool. He’s fucking trapped against Drake’s body, he’s chained to the bed posts, attached to the fucking things by thick leather cuffs on his wrists. He’s, god, Enki’s enjoying the whole setup. He’s a weak thing, no fucking backbone. Hannibal’s screaming in his head to get the fuck up, get away from this. Enki thinks it’s fucking love and from the way Drake looks at him, the way Drake’s hand sweeps down Enki’s chest when he finishes feeding.

Drake’s hands are hard on Enki’s hips when he tips Enki face down on the bed. He pulls out and fucks back in slowly at first and then faster and faster until the whole bed is shaking. Enki is crying out in pleasure, Hannibal is trying to look away. There’s someone there, in the corner of their eye, watching from the window. Enki’s father, Hannibal realizes. He’s pale, horrified. Hannibal has a sense of foreboding under the overwhelming intensity of Enki’s orgasm. This isn’t going to end well.

***

“You’re kidding me, right?” Hannibal’s ears pick up at Whistler’s annoyed tone of voice as they always do when he hears someone else harassing one of his favourite victims. Whistler is standing at the other end of the garage, her face is pinched in an expression of clear confusion. Hedges is sheepish looking and he shrugs lightly.

“I didn’t think it was real either,” Hedges is saying when Hannibal walks up to them. “But when he didn’t eat me, I figured it had to be somewhat true.”

“Ooh, someone wanted to eat you and you didn’t let them?” he teases. Hedges pinks up a little around the cheeks but mans up.

“Well, it wasn’t the fun kind of eating so I declined.”

“You know Hedges, ever since Blade showed up, you’ve been developing a backbone,” Hedges smiles proudly. “I’m not sure I like the new you.” Hannibal cracks a smile to show he’s kidding.

“Word’s out, the vampires made you after your little field trip. I’m thinking we should keep you under wraps for a little while.” Whistler mutters.

“Come again?”

“You’re benched,” Whistler enunciates, her mouth moving slowly around each syllable.

“You can’t keep me here.”

“I can damn well do what’s best for everyone and for the god damned plan, you put the whole operation in jeopardy. They’ve beefed up security, Drake was making appearances and now they’ve got him hidden away and we’re going to have to do a frontal assault on the building to get in.” She’s pissed.

“Fine,” he says. “I get it, you’re pissed that I went off the reservation. But benching me isn’t the answer. You still need me out there on the front line, especially if we’re going to do a full frontal.” Hedges and Dex snicker and Hannibal points at them, raises an eyebrow at them. “You know you want it,” he says.

“You know what I think?” Blade asks. Something in Hannibal snaps.

“Oh, and what? Now you’re fucking in on this with us?” Hannibal demands. “You’re one of us now? You want the shiny Nightstalker decoder ring? Well fuck you, you haven’t even eaten to the bottom of the Wheaties box yet.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Whistler shouts. He’s being confrontational, he knows he’s being confrontational, he doesn’t know what to do about it because he can’t seem to put a filter or a gag on his mouth. Ever since run in number two with Drake, Hannibal has barely been able to keep his emotions under wraps.

“You need to put your fucking ego to the side for a minute,” Blade snaps. “Because of you not only do we need to get in past their security, but now we need to get in and find Drake because he’s not going to be where he was. They’ll have moved him.”

“No, they won’t have fucking moved him,” the disdain is palpable but he doesn’t let them get a word in edgewise. “That’s like moving the mountain to Mohamed.”

“And how the fuck would you know that?” Blade snorts. “You spent a whole ten minutes on the inside before you ran like the piss-ant you are.”

“I fucking know, because I fucking know, okay?” Hannibal’s reached the end of his tolerance for this conversation and he stomps away before he can punch someone (Blade) in the face.

***

Drake is looming over him, not something Hannibal isn’t accustomed to. The bed isn’t the same, this one has red, thick, velvety covers, the room is dark, too dark around the ring of candles for him to see clearly. He opens his mouth when Drake lowers his head for a kiss. The kiss doesn’t bring out Enki’s pathetic little urges, doesn’t make Enki whimper in obvious desire. Instead it feels hot, like a rush. Erotic. He’s not Drake’s little bitch for once, there’s strength in his arms, there’s fight in him, they don’t struggle for domination but he’s not just lying there taking it he’s an actual participant. He thinks for a minute that maybe Enki got turned, maybe it turned everything around for the young man, but he remembers the very human feeling of Enki’s heart pumping it’s last.

The lights are dim, Hannibal is on the bed naked. Drake’s resting between Hannibal’s spread thighs, also naked and trading kisses that taste like sweet wine and burn like whiskey. Hannibal shivers, the heat of Drake seeping into his bones, the weight of him comfortable and somehow reassuring along with being so, so fucking sexy.

“You’re beautiful spread out like this,” Drake murmurs. “Mate of my heart, mate of my soul,” his lips trail down Hannibal’s neck and Hannibal moans at the trail of fire that leaves. The vampire’s hand slides slowly down Hannibal’s chest, long clever fingers tweak a nipple before sliding down and down, wrapping around Hannibal’s cock standing hard between them. Drake’s cock is a thick heavy presence against Hannibal’s inner thigh, running along the cleft of his ass when Drake thrusts lightly, teasingly with his hips.

“This is pleasing, my love,” Drake whispers, his tongue curls around the shell of Hannibal’s ear. “I can not wait to rule the world with you, to have you spread out under me, Hannibal King.”

When he wakes up in a cold sweat with sticky boxers Hannibal swears, loudly and creatively until the air around him is blue. Figures he would be a walking fucking cliche.

Soul mate to the King of the Vampires, when the hell did his life become a Harlequin Romance.

***

Whistler is so serious about keeping him benched that after a week of him trying to sneak out of the Hideout she assigns Zoe as his watchdog.

“You’re a sick, sick person, Abigail Whistler,” he shouts. She may or may not have given him the finger, probably she didn’t, as she, Blade and Dex waltz off into the daylight to shake a few familiars out of the tree, or something like that.

“Can we go to the park?” Zoe asks brightly, she’s already in her running shoes and sweater, knit cap pulled down over her ears. Hannibal bites his lip. The park. Should be relatively safe, it’s the middle of the day after all. On the other hand, the park means chasing a five year old around the swing set a dozen times and being the manliest man to ever ride the other side of a teeter totter. Sommerfield nods and says ‘fine with me’ when he looks in her direction which is fucking freaky because seriously, she’s blind, how does she do that?

“Yeah, sure, boo, lets go to the park.” Zoe cheers. Hannibal grabs his jacket and follows her out the door.

The park is a happening place, which is a good thing. There are a dozen kids running around and another half dozen spinning themselves silly on the merry-go-round. By the time the mothers stop looking at him like he’s Stranger Danger with a white panel van in the alley Zoe has progressed from the swings to the slide, nudged her way onto the merry-go-round for a few turns and returned to the slide.

“She’s very cute,” a woman says. Hannibal has been waiting for her to approach, she’s been watching him play with Zoe for the thirty minutes they’ve been at the park. She belongs to the black Cadillac that screams ‘Vampire’ parked a block away.

“Thanks,” Hannibal says. His guns are in his shoulder holsters under his jacket, he has a silver knife in a sheath in his booth. “Spot’s opened on the merry-go-round,” he tells Zoe. She whoops in delight and takes off.

“She yours?” the woman asks. Hannibal lets his jacket fall open so the woman has full view of his guns.

“Who are you playing lapdog for?” She smiles a big smile full of the cockiness that most familiars have until they’ve been around for more than a few years.

“Asher wants to talk to you, he’s waiting in the car.” He looks over her shoulder at the black Cadillac.

“Yeah, you can tell him to go fuck himself. I don’t take rides in strange cars with strange men.”

“You can get into the car, or I can have the girl shot, right here, right now.” He knows that the smirk on his face is one of the cat that ate the canary, but his insides are frozen with fear.

“I’m pretty sure if you even think of doing something like that, well, Drake’s not going to be too happy with any of you.” She hisses at him and he laughs his ass off.

“You don’t scare me you pathetic little toad,” he’s pretty sure he sees filed fangs in her mouth, he bets Danica thinks that’s the funniest thing in the world. “You tell Asher, if he wants a meet with me so badly, he can get out of the car and do it in person. Seeing as he’s allergic to some good, old fashioned, vitamin D, I’m willing to forgo our current location in favour of a less deadly locale.” He pulls a pen out of his pocket and and grabs her arm. He’s more than amused when she flinches away from him as he writes his cell number down on her arm in big obnoxious numbers. He digs the pen tip in a little harder than necessary. The bitch deserves it though.

***

“Well?” Asher demands when the girl gets back into the car. “We’ve been here for the last half an hour waiting. Where the fuck is he going?”

“He wouldn’t come, he’s an egotistical asshole who thinks he’s got one over on us.”

“Did I ask for your fucking opinion?” she makes a satisfying short lived scream when he pulls her across the bench seat and rips her throat out. It soothes him for a few short seconds. He shoves her body to the floorboard.

“You want me to take you back home?” Asher snarls at the driver.

“You want to offer your fucking opinion too? Consider yourself lucky fuckwit, your job is the only reason you’re still breathing, start fucking driving.”

He prides himself on his magnanimous attitude towards the Familiar. Until they get back to the garage and the man points out the phone number on the woman’s arm as he’s removing the body. Asher crushes the man’s throat in his hand just to listen to him struggle for his last breath. “I would have noticed that eventually,” he tells him casually.

***

Hannibal is waiting for the phone call, that it doesn’t come until almost 3 o’clock in the morning is an annoyance.

“You know, you didn’t have to be a bitch about it, you’ve had my number for hours now and all this hotness doesn’t come completely naturally, I do need my beauty sleep.”

“A hundred years of sleep wouldn’t fix your ugly mug, you didn’t get smacked with the ugly stick, you fucking ate that damn thing,” Asher sounds angry, in that muted ‘even eating a bunch of people isn’t going to make me feel better kind of way’, Hannibal sighs. All is right with the world as long as he’s a constant thorn in Asher’s side.

“We used to be so good, Baby, why you gotta treat me this way?” Hannibal asks. “You want me to do the scared human routine? You really used to go for that. I could shriek a bit, run down a dark hallway, hide in a closet and wait for you to come find me.”

“I fucking hate you,” Asher hangs up on him. Hannibal laughs long and loud into the receiver when Asher calls back. “Also you’re a fuck face,” Asher adds.

“You want to meet, meet me on my terms, somewhere public, like the East Side Mall, the food court. You meet me there, say around noon, I’ll clear my schedule and we can have that little chat your girl from yesterday wanted us to have.”

“The mall? What is this, grade school?”

“You don’t want to meet, that’s fine,” Hannibal hangs up on Asher this time and when the phone rings two seconds later, he’s expecting it.

“Fine, the fucking mall, at 1:30. Pussy.”

“You don’t get the last word,” Hannibal grins wide and hangs up the cell phone, powers it down. He knows Asher, it’s going to drive him fucking insane.

“You look like you’re enjoying that. Maybe a little too much.” Hannibal doesn’t meet Whistler’s eye or ask how long she’s been standing there.

“Yeah, well, maybe it was a little fun.”

“And maybe you don’t have humanity’s best interests at heart if your looking to the vampires for...fun,” he’s off the bed and in her face in seconds.

“Maybe you should keep your fucking opinions to yourself,” he says, and this close up he can see the small scar under her eye from shrapnel, he can see her disdain clearly. Hopefully she can see that this isn’t the fucking time.

***

 

“You should not resist me so much, Love,” Drake whispers in his ear. “Though I admire the strength you show.” Hannibal’s heart is beating a mile a minute, he knows Drake can hear it as well as feel it the way his chest is plastered to Hannibal’s back. He’s sitting in Drake’s lap, Drake is splitting him in two, his hands on Hannibal’s hips rocking Hannibal much to slowly into the much too short thrusts of Drake’s cock.

Hannibal is hard, his own cock pressing up against his stomach, twitching every time Drake presses against his prostate. Hannibal’s arm is up behind him, wrapped around Drake’s neck. He can’t make himself do anything but shudder under the onslaught that Drake is unleashing on his senses. Hannibal is more than a little confused about everything but he’s definitely not confused about what he wants.

“I want to wake up now,” he says.

Drake’s chuckle rings in his ears when he opens his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. He can still feel Drake’s hands around his hips. This is getting ridiculous.

***

The mall is a cheerful crowded place, there are Nightstalkers fucking everywhere because Whistler’s gone back to automatically not trusting him the way she had when they had first cured him, and Asher is nowhere to be seen. Hannibal has a plate of The Works from New York Fries in front of him with the cheese slowly congealing around the heap of chili.

“Your fucking cockroaches are everywhere,” Asher says. Hannibal doesn’t yelp, yelping is not manly. Instead he burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth on his hot chocolate.

“Fuck, man, you made me burn my tongue.”

“Boo hoo hoo, you want I should kiss it better?” Hannibal leers up at Asher.

“Would you?” he asks and sticks his tongue out. Asher snorts and rolls his eyes. “Moving the fuck on, we’re having this retarded little meeting,” Hannibal grins at him, mostly because he knows one of the things that’s always bugged Asher, aside from the babbling, the attitude and that thing he can do with his tongue, is the way he can smile, smirk, grin and bullshit his way out of almost anything.

“Fuck, this would have been so much fucking easier if you had just got in the god damned car yesterday.” Asher’s looking more than normally pale under the bright food court lights. Hannibal takes pity on him.

“I’m gonna throw you a bone,” he says.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Asher, sitting in a food court and dressed in an immaculate three piece suit, wearing a sneer that curls the side of his mouth up and bares a canine, isn’t even marginally less appealing than he’s ever been but with Whistler beside him Hannibal keeps that comment to himself.

“Drake saw me running recon the other day, and he recognized me. He’s telling you all that I belong to him and basically he’s probably still crazy as a bag of hammers but less crazy than he has been up to now.” Hannibal munches on a french fry and tries and fails to act contrite in the face of Asher’s completely stupefied expression.

“You think you know, but you don’t. He’s completely fucking insane and stupider than a bag of bricks until your little break in. Suddenly he’s not even eating anything, he’s too fucking busy ordering everyone around, making everything ‘perfect’,” he air quotes around the word ‘perfect’ with one of the most annoyed faces that Hannibal has ever seen him make. “He wants you, won’t tell us why, but if he doesn’t get you he’s going to destroy the whole world.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Whistler’s glaring for all she’s worth. “Dirtbag blood sucking leech isn’t going to be able to ‘destory the whole world’, even if we don’t stop him, and we damn well will, he’s not invincible, someone else will.”

“You’re a naive little bitch,” Asher snarls at her, showing off his teeth. “And we’re not stupid enough to not take him at his word. I would think that, for world peace and the lives of the millions of you meat bags that live in it, one man isn’t a really big price to pay.” Whistler looks stumped and Hannibal takes pity on her. He puts a hand on her arm to keep her mouth under control and she looks mutinous but doesn’t say anything.

“Tell you what, you bring him my terms, we’ll see how this goes.” Hannibal was up all night thinking about them, he’s been thinking about it for days. If he tells the truth, he kind of wants it now.

“Fuck you and your terms. He wants you and we’re going to get you and it’s not going to matter if you come with me right now or if we have to wait for your ass to be delivered on a silver platter. We put out the word and one of the familiars and the vampire wannabes are going to catch up to you sooner or later. And I know from personal experience that you have issues with human killing, sweetie. Though apparently Blade doesn’t, you feel good about the way he shut down that warehouse?”

Hannibal bares his teeth in a parody of a grin. “Your fucking ‘Final Solution’ is a crock of shit and we’re going to shut down every single facility you set up, it’s a better death than hanging brain dead and daisy fresh in a super sized Ziplock bag. You tell him that I’m not fucking Enki and I’m not going to fall at his god damned feet. He wants me, I might let him have me, but he’s going to rein all of your asses in.” Asher looks at him askance.

“That’s right, bitchy britches, we’re going to have a truce, or he’s going to go fucking insane and raze you all down first on his way to me. Oh, and speaking of razing, make sure to tell him I’m not looking to die like Enki did. You have yourself a pleasant day now, ya hear?” He pats Asher on the shoulder when he gets up and walks away. Half the food court gets up and walks out with him. Without knowing why, the rest of the food court feels like they’ve let out a sigh of relief at the release of tension.

***

“This is acceptable to me,” is all Drake says when Asher lays out Hannibal’s terms. Danica goes into a completely reasonable, in Asher’s opinion, freak out.

“It’s not god damned acceptable. We’re at war with these fucking blue plate specials and you just want us to roll over and take it up the ass so you can get a fucking piece?” Her voice is reaching heretofore unknown decibel ranges. “You want to fuck the little shit so bad we’ll just grab him and you can have him for as long as you want. But there’s no way I’m going to let you screw up a plan that we’ve been working on for ten years just because you want to dip your fucking dick in it.”

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your mouth or I will remove it.” Drake tells her. In the week that Asher’s been away (three days to track down Hannibal, two to sack up and go to the asshole) there have been a lot of changes. For one, most if not all of the other vampires in the room are deferring to Drake. For another, the main room that used to have a conference table, some comfortable chairs and couches, now it still has some of the comfortable chairs and couches but instead of a conference table it now holds a very obvious throne at the front of the room and is cleared out completely otherwise.

“And you’ll do what we woke you up to do, don’t think I won’t shove you back in your hole.” Danica doesn’t know how to keep her god damned mouth shut. Drake moves like a blur, catches her around the neck and slams her into the wall opposite. The cracks that spread in the glass from the impact look like a broken Halo. She hisses and claws viciously, she tries to fight but can’t move him.

“Do not presume that you have any control over me. Should you continue to claw and shriek and act like a bitch in heat, I will put you down like one.”

“Hey, here’s a thought, how about instead of fucking around, we get this done, get Hannibal over here and then we can deal with everything else.” There’s a feeling of dread pooling in his stomach, he’s sweating through his shirt under his jacket and he didn’t think he could sweat any longer, but with Drake concentrating one hundred percent bad ass at him in glare form, Asher is quite willing to believe that anything is possible.

Drake lets go of Danica’s throat and she slumps to the ground, to Asher the tiny glass shards that fall from her hair to the floor look like diamonds under the florescent lighting.

***

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Whistler is in a complete rage, the likes of which no one at the Honeycomb Hideout has ever seen. Hell, the most she’d ever done when the anger needed to boil over was that one time she’d punched a hole in the kitchen wall. The entirety of the Nightstalker regime is in the warehouse. Everyone is yelling, no one knows what the hell is going on. If Whistler hadn’t been so damned insistent about them having so much back up, it would only have been a few people. Hell, even Zoe is here.

“I don’t fucking care who’s kidding who, I want to know what the fuck is going on. I take off for two fucking minutes and the whole warehouse clears out to the god damned mall for happy meal time with Asher fucking Talos?”

Hannibal bares his teeth at Blade in a mockery of a grin. “It’s the Honeycomb Hideout, and you know it.”

“You don’t get to joke, shit face!” Dex shouts, Hedges wrapping practically all of his body around the man is the only thing keeping the Dex from launching his fist into Hannibal’s face. “You lied to us, you put the whole network in danger. You risked everything to talk to that ass wipe and you held back vital information from all of us that could have saved lives!”

“I’m working on it, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Walk up to the fucking guy and say ‘hey there baby, what’s shaking’? I didn’t know what was happening. I still don’t know what’s happening.”

“Great, that’s one thing settled.” Blade says. Whistler whirls around on him incredulously. He grabs her shoulders and shoves her onto a box. He points at Hannibal, with his sunglasses in place and his swords sticking up over his shoulders he looks pretty damned menacing. “Explain.” The room goes completely quiet. So Hannibal does. He lets Hedges fill in a few places, the whole room explodes into chatter when he tells them about the dreams, about Enki. Okay, well, he doesn’t tell them about the sex.

“So we give you over and they’ll end the war?” Sommerfield asks. And doesn’t that just set off a whole new bundle of arguments.

Hannibal leaves them to it and slips out before anyone has a chance to notice him edging out of the room.

***

It doesn’t take him long to make his way to Slimeballs ‘R Us, he doesn’t try to get in this time. Instead he sits in the middle of a bench in the park, stretches his arms out to the sides and waits. There’s a faint chill in the air from impending fall. The leaves over his head are starting to turn.

“Look at that,” a voice trying to be sinister says over his shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got a good dinner to put on the table tonight.” Hannibal doesn’t even reach for his gun.

“You could try it,” he offers. “But you sound kind of young, you sound kind of like you’re new to this whole thing so it would really play out kind of bad for you.”

“What makes you think that?” and god does the kid ever sound young.

“Well I’m betting I can get to my gun and dust you faster than you can get over here to eat me.” The kid gives a derisive snort and from there Hannibal hears the familiar sounds of a scuffle. He’s still not looking when Drake sits down beside him on the bench.

“In the alternative I could kill him for daring to think he could have you.” Hannibal turns his head to look at Drake.

“Or you could do that, yeah.” Hannibal says.

“Immortality will come to such as are fit for it,” simply said, like he can control the sun and the moon. Hell, for all they know about him, Drake may well be able to control who does and doesn’t get turned. Thinking on turning...

“I won’t be turned,” he may as well lay the ground rules right now. Drake laughs, a deep chested sound that rumbles into Hannibal’s arm where their bodies touch.

“It is amusing how the people of this world all seem convinced they can control my actions.”

“I won’t be turned,” he insists.

“So you say now,” Drake murmurs. “Perhaps you will change your mind at a future time. We will revisit the matter then.” He puts a proprietary hand on Hannibal’s thigh and Hannibal doesn’t have the slightest inclination to move it. “Asher delivered the remainder of your terms. I will allow them, for you.”

“Everything?”

“Every last condition, I have the power to ensure the taking of lives ends where these children are concerned.”

“What about what happened to Enki?” he feels the ghost of a sharp stabbing pain through his chest cavity. Drake turns to face him, a hand rests unerringly right where the blade had sliced through.

“That will never happen again.” His hand is warm which Hannibal didn’t think was possible, but the regular rules don’t seem to apply to Drake.

“Okay, let’s do this.” Hannibal says.

***

The deal works out thusly, Drake gets Hannibal. Hannibal gets world peace, or a facsimile thereof where the humans and vampires don’t fight each other. The Vampires go off and start a war with werewolves of all things and some of them end up getting turned and Hannibal finally gets to tell his joke.

"What do you get when you cross a vampire with a werewolf? You get a fur coat that sticks to your neck!" no one thinks it’s funny. Hannibal also gets Drake, which, in the end is kind of awesome.

/end


End file.
